


Dissimulation

by diefleder_tey



Category: Arashi (Band), Kanjani8 (Band), V6
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dark, Fairy Tale Retellings, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-10
Updated: 2012-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 09:51:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diefleder_tey/pseuds/diefleder_tey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, three brothers lived in a house just outside the woods.  But all of that changed the day a stranger came looking for help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ltgmars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ltgmars/gifts).



> Written for ltgmars for the 2012 [je_squickfic](http://je-squickfic.livejournal.com/) exchange. Based on a Grimm's Tale (which is listed at the end so as not to spoil the story completely ahead of time). If you’ve never heard a vulture’s hiss before, I [highly recommend listening to this](http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Turkey_Vulture/sounds). You can find other bird calls on that site, which may add to the feeling of the story.

 

For the first two knocks, Nino couldn’t be bothered to turn away from the stitches he was meticulously sewing into his best shirt. His older brother had ribbed him a few times about how only seamstresses mended shirts, but none of them had the money to hire out and none of them knew anyone in town to ask. And for that matter, Nino wasn’t about to let either of his two brothers hold a needle let alone turn them loose on his clothes.

Not that going to town would have done them any good. Everyone liked the three brothers well enough and had been kind to them ever since their mother had died some number of years ago. When Inocchi, the eldest, took pumpkins from their patch, the few that they grew in their yard, he’d always come back with at least a couple of coins, whether he had sold any or not. And Maru, the youngest, had started helping out during harvests, when extra hands were rarely turned away.

But the tavern in town was never hiring, the blacksmith never needed an apprentice, and harvest only came once a year. Even though Nino was decent at sewing, it seemed like no one ever needed him to sew. The townspeople smiled politely and went about their business and Nino knew, without anyone ever having to say it – they were liked well enough, but well enough didn’t amount to much. Unlike his two brothers, who were both at times seemingly diseased with permanent grins, Nino noticed the glances and the shifts in posture. He noticed women whispering to children and men trying their best to find other things to do whenever he was around. “You should smile more,” Maru told him. Nino tried.

When he was younger, he had been bored one day, staring out the window as his brothers played in the small pumpkin patch. Their mother had tasked them with tending to it, but Nino found something about the plants uninteresting. Inocchi was good at selling them, Maru at hauling them around – he was good at neither. He didn’t have Inocchi’s disarming charm, and his hands and shoulders were nothing like Maru’s. Somewhere between the boredom of his youth – living outside of town at the edge of the forest with only his brothers and pumpkins to play with – and the burning curiosity of being alone, Nino knew why the three were nothing alike. He knew why, later in his life, the townspeople would point it out in whispers as they walked by. “You were hatched from an egg,” his mother would tease him, smiling, whenever he started to ask. “That’s why.”

She was sewing that day. And unwilling to join his brothers outside, Nino found himself interested in her work, asking about the needle and thread. He sometimes wondered, as an adult, if part of the reason no one hired him to sew was the fact that he reminded everyone so much of his mother. The townspeople had kept their distance from her, too, and the reason why had a lot more to do with what she was than any lack of cheer.

He put it out of his mind, like he did whenever he was bothered too much by his brother’s tandem smiles. Sewing was a loner’s activity, but it was never lonesome. He enjoyed hunching over and working minutely, focused in on his working hands and oblivious to the world outside. He would have continued to ignore the distraction had there not been a third knock at the door, bringing to mind something else his mother always used to say: “Trouble comes in threes.”

When Inocchi opened the door, an older man in a dark cape with a bag on his back stepped in. It was damp outside from a previous rain, but the humidity did nothing to diminish the regality of the man’s smile. Inocchi would have opened the door for anyone; for this stranger, he immediately welcomed him in.

Nino turned slightly away. He ran the end of the thread through his mouth, wetting it to push through the eye of his needle, with his look subtly fixed on the man.

Inocchi laughed while apologizing, though neither his face nor voice gave away any hint of embarrassment. “We don’t have a lot to offer right now,” he said, waving over his youngest brother. “He must be hungry, let's boil some turnips.”

Maru stood next to him and whispered, “We’ve only got two left.”

“That’s okay,” Inocchi whispered back. “Remember: good deeds come back to you if you go around.”

“I think the saying’s, ‘What goes around, comes around.’”

Nino rolled his eyes at his brothers – they were both much louder than they realized. “Shit happens to good people,” he muttered in correction.

“Thank you, but I’m not hungry,” the stranger said, putting up his hand. “I need some help. I live in the castle on the other side of the forest and I came to town three days ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Inocchi admitted, “none of us are very good at finding our way around the woods.”

“I’m not lost,” he corrected. “I mean I need help – hired help. The previous caretaker of my castle has become quite old. I’m looking for someone new to keep it clean. I asked around town, but most of the people wouldn’t speak to me.”

“Work?” A smile unfolded on Inocchi’s face. “They’re just shy, but it doesn’t matter. They would've just told you that I’m the best castle cleaner in town anyway.”

The stranger looked amused. “You?”

Inocchi stood proudly, his chest out and a serious look on his face. “Haven’t set our house on fire once.”

The stranger extended his hand. “Well, then I should have stopped here first.”

“Wait a minute,” Maru spoke up. Inocchi gave an apologetic nod and shoved his youngest brother to the fireplace, where Nino sat, still hunched over his work. “The other side of the forest?” Maru whispered. “We’ve never been that far out before.”

“Probably not worth the trip,” Nino replied in between stitches.

“But it’s a castle,” Inocchi insisted. “Only rich people have castles. This is exactly what we need – I told you good things happen.”

“I don’t mean to be rude,” the stranger interrupted. “I understand that it’s important to say goodbye, but we should leave soon to get the most out of daylight.”

“Goodbye?” Maru asked.

“It’s too far to travel every day,” the stranger answered. “You’ll have to leave your brothers and live with me.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out several gold coins. “But I’ll pay you well, twice this each week – and you can return once a month to visit.”

Inocchi elbowed his youngest brother. “See?” He clapped his hands together. “Well, let’s get going then!”

“Inocchi,” Maru started.

The stranger looked pleased, his smile almost too wide, too full of teeth. “Great,” he replied, extending his hand again. “My name is Sakamoto.”

“I’ll grab a few things,” Inocchi replied, shaking it.

“But-” Maru started.

“It’s a lot of money,” Nino told him. “Ow.” He had pricked himself with the needle, drawing blood. He put his finger in his mouth, grimacing more at the taste than the pain, and finally looked away from the shirt to meet the glance of his brother.

“But…”

Inocchi came rushing by, a sheet he had stuffed with a few items in hand. He quickly ruffled Nino’s hair and put a hand on Maru’s shoulder. “Next month, we’ll have meat! There’s a few coins hidden under my pillow, okay? Use that until I get back.”

“Inocchi.”

The eldest brother led his new employer out of the house and turned briefly before following. “Don’t worry, Maru,” he said. “Sakamoto knows his way through the woods, we won’t get lost.”

After the door closed, Maru sank down on the bench next to Nino with a sigh. “I’m not worried about that.”

“He’ll be back in a month,” Nino replied, biting on the thread to cut it. As the day went on, a creeping silence filled their home, settling around Nino and hanging over him until it became a distraction, invading his oblivious world. With nothing to ignore, no loud voices or excited tones to filter out, his work got sloppier. After pulling out the fifth wrong stitch in a row, Nino gave up. Maru had long left the bench to tend to the patch, but when Nino stuck his head out of the window to call him in, he found his younger brother merely sitting amongst the vines, surrounded by the unripened gourds that wouldn’t be ready for another month or so.

For dinner, they ate the last two turnips, much to Nino’s disgust. “He’ll be back in a month,” he repeated, with a light tone, “and we won’t have to eat this anymore.”

As they prepared for bed, Nino unconsciously rubbed his thumb over his finger, where he had pricked it earlier. His thoughts returned to his youth, the day spent looking out the window in boredom as his two brothers worked outside, the youngest following the eldest like a shadow – the two who looked nothing alike but somehow were more similar to each other than either was to Nino. His first attempt at sewing was a disaster – he had only practiced on a scrap cloth and the stitches were too large, inconsistent. He had accidentally pricked his finger nearly ten times on such a simple task. That night when they had sat down to dinner, Inocchi took one look at the cloth and then put it in his pocket. “I’ve always wanted a handkerchief!” he had said, with Maru at his side mimicking his smile. Inocchi would sometimes tease Nino about his sewing, but always with a sense of pride in his voice.

Like everything else, Nino put it out of his mind as he blew out the candle and crawled into bed.

 

~*~

 

For three days, Inocchi followed Sakamoto through the woods. The older man had kept food in his bag, enough to feed them both, and a blanket that they laid on at night. At times, Inocchi couldn’t help himself and asked questions or talked about his life, all of which was met with a pleasant smile from Sakamoto. But the majority of the journey was in silence, with Inocchi looking around in wonder as they passed trees that seemed indiscernible from one another. “How do you find your way around?”

“The birds,” Sakamoto replied, stepping over large tree roots.

Inocchi looked up. He had somewhat noticed the birds singing along the way, but at the end of their three days, it seemed like the canopy was teeming with them – doves crowding on branches, the crowds getting thicker as they went along.

Sakamoto’s step became livelier. “We’re almost there.”

His castle sat in a clearing, a large structure with a tower on the right side. Inocchi had never seen a castle before and was unable to keep his mouth closed as Sakamoto opened the door. And because he had never seen a castle before, he assumed that this one was in no way out of the ordinary, despite the open holes in parts of the roof and the dark rafters around them. One of the doves from the forest flew in, flapping strenuously and cooing as it lit on the stone floor.

“Your room is to the left,” Sakamoto said, closing the door and putting the now much lighter bag on a table to the side. “You don’t have to cook, just keep the floors clean.”

Inocchi was only half listening, amused by the dove pecking around on the stone. The more he looked at the floor, the more he realized that the room was covered in droppings – the unfortunate result of the open roofs. He scrunched up his nose, but in return for room and gold, it wasn’t much to ask. And it would get easier as soon as he had the chance to find some wood to cover the holes. He vaguely heard something about “removing remains” when he noticed that something was shifting in the rafters – a wave carrying through the shadows which had suddenly grown several pairs of eyes. Inocchi was startled as a hawk shot out, clamping down on the dove with its talons and closing around its neck before returning to its spot above – the act of which gave shape to the shadows in the form of a dozen birds.

Inocchi stumbled backwards.

“If you don’t,” Sakamoto continued, unfazed by his new assistant’s pale look, “they’ll just leave the bones everywhere.” He made a face.

“Why don’t you just get rid of them?” Inocchi asked, with a nervous smile. “Patch the holes?”

Sakamoto laughed and held out his arm. Another hawk from the rafters swooped in and landed on it, sitting on his hand and opening the flesh with its grip. Sakamoto never winced or wavered. “They’re my birds,” he answered. “They belong here.” He raised his arm, giving the hawk a jump start to its flight. Once it had left, he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe the blood off of his hand. “They’re the reason you’re here.”

“You’re not human,” Inocchi quietly joked.

Cleaning up after the birds was initially an unpleasant task, with all the feathers and bits of mice that Inocchi had to remove with nothing more than a damp cloth. The castle seemed almost infinite in space, but he found that he never had to clean up after Sakamoto himself, the other man being impeccably neat – nor was he ever asked to clean anything in the tower. And at night, the two dined together – their only company being each other, separated by a long wooden table.

“Where does the cooking staff live?” Inocchi asked.

Sakamoto smiled – an uncomfortable non-answer – and took another spoonful of his soup.

“There must be another town closer, maybe on the other side. Are you a prince? Or was your father a king or something, a baron? What do you do during the day?”

“Maybe you should ask fewer questions,” Sakamoto finally answered, a slight frustration reflected in his eyes. “Your soup’s getting cold.”

Inocchi smiled back. “Oh, okay. No more questions.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know what my father did but my mother was a seamstress. Well, sort of, I don’t know if anyone ever actually paid her to sew. But I used to sell pumpkins.”

Sakamoto sighed though his shoulders seemed to relax. He continued to eat, letting Inocchi talk to his heart’s content. When the younger man had run out of things to say, he resorted to asking himself questions in lieu of forcing Sakamoto into conversation.

And when the week was over, Sakamoto gave him a handful of gold coins – almost too much for Inocchi to hold and more than he had ever seen at once in his lifetime. It was more than enough to take care of his brothers back home for several months. He smiled – it was the best thing to ever happen to him.

After two weeks, Sakamoto handed him a key. “I have to go out on business,” he explained. “To another town. I’ll be gone all week.”

“What’s the key for?” Inocchi asked.

“All of the rooms in the tower are locked,” he answered. He moved around as he talked, ducking through a doorway and coming out with a box. “I want you to clean them while I’m gone – except the third room, at the very top. Leave that one alone.”

“Why?”

Sakamoto ignored him. “I don’t care what you do in the other two rooms,” he said, very pointedly. “But whatever you do, stay out of the third one, okay?”

“Got it,” Inocchi replied.

Sakamoto opened the box and pulled out an egg. “I also need you to take care of this,” he said, carefully handing it over. “Make sure you protect it at all times or the other birds will destroy it.” Before he turned to leave, he put his hands on Inocchi’s shoulders and looked at him with a worried face. “You understand, right? What I’ve told you is really important.”

“I understand.” Inocchi reached into his pocket and pulled out a cloth – it was old and worn, the workmanship shoddy and the stitches too big. “Nothing safer than this,” he said, wrapping the egg in it. He then put it gently down the pocket of his shirt.

Sakamoto took a deep breath. He looked unconvinced, but gathered his things. “I’ll be back in a week,” he said, leaving the castle.

Inocchi gently patted the egg. “One of the hawks must have laid it,” he mused out loud. He put the key in another pocket and started about his usual chores, careful to keep himself as upright as possible so that the egg wouldn’t fall out.

On the third day, he decided it was time to tackle the tower and went to the first locked room, at the base. As Inocchi turned the key, he heard the fluttering of wings behind him; a few starlings had decided to tag along. He looked over his shoulder to see them impatiently waiting, their heads cocked and blinking while Inocchi seemed to take his time. He opened the door only slightly, which caused them to voice their annoyance in high pitched chattering trills and flapping shrieks. He shrugged – their protests were only going to grab the attention of the hawks down the hall. It would serve them right for being so demanding.

The door was heavy and moved slowly. Once inside, a starling darted past him and lit on the branch of a tree that grew inexplicably out of the middle. Inocchi’s mouth dropped as he walked around looking at it. The ground was dirt and the tree looked somewhat dead, like he had found it in winter instead of the outset of fall. Like the rest of the castle, the room was open to the outside air, through a hole in the side of the wall. The tree had grown sideways and branched out into the fresh air and birds came and went, some obviously making it their home. Inocchi had to move around the room cautiously, as the roots were large and scattered and ready to trip him at any time.

If the tree wasn’t enough to impress him, the glint of sun reflecting off silver soon caught his attention and alerted him to the pile of treasures sitting in the corner of the room. Inocchi quickly dropped to his knees and began pouring through it – chalices and necklaces, coins and daggers. What was in that room would feed him and his brothers for the rest of their lives, and Sakamoto’s deliberate words resounded in his ears. “He doesn’t care, right?” Inocchi asked himself, holding up a necklace. He was torn – one piece would never be missed, but so far Sakamoto had been more than generous. Was there really a need to steal?

Inocchi placed it back in the pile and stood up; his motion caused the birds to scatter in a cloud of wings, slipping out of the hole in a frenzy that left some squeezed out and flapping on the ground.

Despite the fact that the room had been locked for some time and constantly open to birds, it hardly needed cleaning; unable to do much, and unsure how to go about cleaning a dirt floor anyway, Inocchi decided to leave it be. He relocked the door and headed up the stone staircase to the second room. He passed a window as he went, where crows sat, cawing in quick succession as if to mock him. “Shoo,” he said, waving a hand at them. The crows jumped away, but never stopped their rattling calls.

The second room had a door just as heavy and the same dirt floor, even though it was a story off of the ground. But instead of a tree, Inocchi found the walls covered in vines – bright with fresh leaves and green like spring, lining the stone and crawling out the open window to up above. He passed his fingertips over them, lightly touching the leaves, causing birds to fly out in panic.

However, instead of silver, the second room had a pile of gold. Inocchi sat down next to it and started to sort through, quickly estimating that there was enough to feed their entire town for several years. _I don’t care what you do in the other two rooms._ It had been somewhat strange to hear, but now surrounded by shimmering wealth, Inocchi found that Sakamoto's words were boiling in his mind – until, finally, “What does he keep in the third one?” erupted from his mouth. He put all of the gold back as he found it, not taking a single piece. And in return for his honesty and loyalty, he decided, he would only peek into the last room.

Curiosity burned at his limbs as he fumbled to lock the door to the second room and then sprinted up the stairs to the top of the tower. Whatever Sakamoto had in there had to be more precious and valuable – the open invitation to take any silver or gold a mere diversion. As Inocchi turned the key in the third and final door, he told himself it was okay. “I won’t take anything,” he said. “There’s no harm in looking.”

However, the third room was nothing like the others. It was largely empty and bright, the stone floor and walls washed out from the light let in by the windows that were, despite being barred enough to keep all but the smallest of birds out, numerous and sizable. As Inocchi walked in, he heard the unnerving guttural hiss of a lone vulture outside on a ledge. It sounded like cloth being violently torn apart, and as he crept closer and closer to the middle of the room, the hissing became louder as the vulture watched his every move.

The only object there was a basin covered by a white sheet. Inocchi kneeled slowly, still watching the bird outside, as he grabbed the sheet and pulled. The motion must have spooked the vulture – it flew off, much to Inocchi’s relief.

He looked over into the basin, expecting to find jewels or something much better – what, he wasn’t sure, unable to imagine what could be better but sure that such a thing had to exist. Instead he was greeted with a pool of somewhat thick red liquid, the smell of which took him back to a time in his youth when he had accidentally missed the ground with his hoe and jammed the blade into his shin. He was aware that he had known better than to go into the third room, and he was equally aware that he knew better than to touch the liquid. But unable to swat away instinct before good sense could prevail, Inocchi reached over the side of the basin and dipped his fingertips in. He moved them slightly, stirring the surface; it caused something to move in the depths below and when his touch bumped into an object, Inocchi jerked his hand back, flinging drops of red all over the washed out stone. He peered a little closer to see as it bubbled to the surface – the delicate hand of what appeared to be a young lady, her ring still on her third finger. The hand, and nothing else.

In Inocchi’s scramble to get up and back away, the handkerchief slipped out of his pocket, taking the egg with it. Without thinking, Inocchi reached in and grabbed it, shaking the blood off and stumbling out of the room. He slammed the door shut and locked it. He thought nothing of the egg, but instead instinctively put the handkerchief that held it back into his pocket, where it had resided for so many years. After taking a deep brief, Inocchi nodded to himself – there was probably a good explanation for the hand in the basin. But no amount of money was worth finding out.

He ran down the stairs and headed for the front door, not stopping by his room to pick up any of his things. All he had to do was follow the birds in the forest – as long as there were less of them as he went along, he knew he’d be heading in the right direction for home.

Inocchi skidded to a halt as the front door opened before he could reach it, Sakamoto walking in with a weary expression. He swallowed a gasp and took several steps back, wiping his hand on the back of his pants as the other man sighed.

“That was a waste,” Sakamoto said, dropping his bag on the floor.

“You’re home early,” Inocchi choked out.

“Complete waste,” Sakamoto answered. He smiled. “Never mind that. I know the month isn’t over yet, but why don’t we go visit your brothers.” He walked toward Inocchi, who scooted back at his outstretched hand. “It’s okay,” Sakamoto laughed. “I’ll pay you the full amount early.” He rubbed his neck and stretched. “We can leave as soon as I’ve had a bath. Ah, where’s the egg?”

Inocchi smiled nervously and reached into his pocket. “Hang on, it’s wrapped tightly in my handkerchief,” he said, turning around. With his back turned, he quickly rubbed the egg with the cloth, trying to wipe away all of the blood. Part of it had already dyed the shell, and Inocchi carefully turned the stained side toward his hand to obscure it. He jammed the handkerchief back into his pocket and held out the egg. “Here it is.”

Sakamoto took it gladly, but the smile on his face dropped when he turned the egg over. “There’s blood on this.”

“That’s not from the hawks!” Inocchi quickly said. He shook out the handkerchief quickly. “Sorry, I…had a bloody nose and only had this to stop it.”

“I see.” Sakamoto disappeared briefly, carrying the egg into another room. “And the key?” he called.

Inocchi had it ready for him by the time he returned. “Good,” Sakamoto replied. “I think we should take something special to your brothers.”

“O-okay,” Inocchi answered, following behind. They walked in silence to the first locked room and Inocchi could feel his shoulders slowly creeping up as they went. The hallway was lined with birds, all, for the first time, silently watching.

“Go ahead,” Sakamoto said, his smile tight and forced. “Pick something out for each of them.”

Inocchi nodded obediently and crouched over the pile of silver. He picked up the first two things he came across; as he put them in his pockets, he decided he would play along with Sakamoto until he got home. Then, when he was reunited with his brothers – one against three – they’d capture him and take him into town. He would tell everyone about the basin and would promise them their weight in gold if they’d lock Sakamoto away somewhere for life. He took a deep breath and stood to leave the room, confident in his brilliant plan.

When he turned, Sakamoto was there, knife in hand. “I told you not to go into the third room.”

Before Inocchi had time to react, Sakamoto thrust the knife forward, stabbing him in the side. Inocchi stumbled backwards to get away, tripping over the large roots in the process. As he fell down, he slammed the side of his skull against the floor with a bloody crack. He momentarily forgot the danger at hand, his tongue hanging out of his slack mouth and his body unwilling to move. He knew he was telling himself to get up, but was surprised to suddenly find that he was on his back, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry,” he slurred out.

“I asked just one thing,” Sakamoto said above him. “One simple thing. That was all.”

Inocchi took a deep breath, attempting to exhale the grogginess. “Huh?” He knit his eyebrows in confusion – he wasn’t sure why he had uttered the word, but a moment later a particular smell drifted across his nose.

And then, the burning settled into his stomach.

He could move his head enough to see that Sakamoto had split open his gut.

The blood mixed into the dirt, unnoticeable once it seeped in. Sakamoto grabbed Inocchi by the hair, pulling his head to drag him out of the room. “I’m not letting the birds pick you over,” he said.

Inocchi held onto consciousness just long enough to feel his body hitting every step as Sakamoto slowly dragged him upstairs.

 

~*~

 

Three knocks again, and this time Maru answered the door. “Sakamoto,” he said. He took a step back and let the older man inside. “Where’s Inocchi?”

Sakamoto had a stern expression and took a deep breath before running his fingers through his hair. “Your brother took a liking to one of my stable girls,” he said, keeping his tone level.

“What?” Nino had been melting down the candles in the fireplace – taking the leftover short sticks and pouring the hot wax over new wicks to make them last longer. The days were getting shorter and there was no sense in wasting what money they had on more. He accidentally poured some of the wax on his finger at the news and quickly shook it off before it could cool onto his skin.

Maru offered the older man a seat. “He did well during the first week,” Sakamoto replied, taking the chair gratefully. “But during the second week I noticed he was getting sloppier and sloppier.”

Maru and Nino exchanged worried glances. Their brother had at times been known to give away some of their pumpkins for free to a pretty face.

“I had to go away on business and when I came back,” he continued, “they had run off, taking half of my fortune with them.”

“Inocchi wouldn’t steal,” Maru protested, quietly.

“It’s my fault,” Sakamoto explained. “I told him he was welcome to take as much as he needed for his family. I guess he just decided it applied to his new family as well. I have no idea where he is. I haven’t seen him for two weeks now.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bag of coins that he tossed at Nino. “Here’s what I promised to pay. He did help out a little, so you should have it.”

The bag felt heavy in his hands and Nino nodded. Maru sat next to him, a stunned look on his face. “Inocchi wouldn’t just leave us.”

“He was pretty eager to get out of here the first time,” Nino answered without thinking. He cringed as he said it, instantly wishing that he had kept the thought to himself.

“The love of a pretty young girl is a powerful thing,” Sakamoto said, standing. “Anyway, thank you for your kindness, boys.”

“Wait,” Maru said, as the other opened their door. “You still need help, right?”

“I do.”

“I’ll go.”

Nino dropped the pan of wax, cursing under his breath as he jumped back from the splattering. “Maru-”

Maru rushed around the room, picking up things as he went along and holding them in his arms. Feeling some pressure to hurry for Sakamoto’s sake, he ended up grabbing things blindly.

“Maru’s terrible at cleaning,” Nino said, moving to block his brother from walking. “And he’s too young to go.”

“It’s a lot of money, right?” Maru replied.

Nino held up the bag of coins. “We’ve got this – the pumpkins are about to turn, that’ll be plenty.” He stumbled as he tried to move along with his brother’s pace, reaching out and grabbing his hand. Nino’s was small in comparison and for a brief minute, he felt like a child holding onto his younger brother. “Maybe I can convince someone in town to let me sew for them. I’ll sell them with you, look, I’ll even smile.”

Maru gently pulled his hand away and replied, warmly, “I’m going to find Inocchi.”

“Maru. If he really did run away with a stable girl, I don’t know that he’ll be happy to see you.”

He nodded in return and dumped his armful on the bed, gathering the corners of the sheet together and tying them in a knot. “Don’t worry,” Maru said. “I’ll bring him back in time for the harvest. Ready!”

Nino watched as his youngest brother followed Sakamoto out the door, shutting it and leaving him alone with the dying fire. He couldn’t be bothered to finish with the candles, instead opting to pour the last bit of hot wax out on the ground outside before it could cool in his pan. His hand cramped from the heavy metal, his grip not quite large enough to hold it for so long. As he walked back inside, he saw out of the corner of his eye that the pumpkins had already started to turn color.

 

~*~

 

Maru was glad to get inside the castle. He liked being out in the forest, but three days of travel at the mercy of someone else’s directions made him uncomfortable. Sakamoto had tried his hardest to be kind and answer any small talk he threw out, but eventually Maru ran out of questions and had opted to echo some of the bird calls he heard on their trip instead. He got the vague sense that Sakamoto’s patience was wearing thin by the time they emerged from the woods.

Sakamoto showed him his room. “The birds aren’t allowed in here,” he said, opening the door. “Ah, except one.”

Maru set his bag on the bed and walked up to a cage hanging in the corner. Inside was a lone dove, fluffed up into a ball and keeping to the left. “Why is he in a cage?”

“The hawks were after him,” Sakamoto explained. “He had a gash across his front, bloodied beak. They’ll kill him if he gets out.”

Maru made a cooing noise at the bird, which was met with a quick turn of its head as it looked up at him.

“You don’t have to cook,” Sakamoto said, leading him out.

For the next week, Maru cleaned the castle as he was told. The work didn’t bother him so much as the silence, and so he often sang to himself to make the time pass. Day after day, he would get up and feed the injured dove in his room and then clean a part of the castle. At night he would join Sakamoto in the dining hall. Maru vacillated between talking too much and not at all. When he spoke, he talked about life with his brothers and how they tried to sell pumpkins in town – how some years they ate more than they sold – and would sometimes catch Sakamoto relaxing on the other side with a fond smile.

“You’re a lot like him,” he mused once.

“What?” Maru asked in reply. Sakamoto waved him off. When he had run out of superficial things to say, Maru would clam up, finishing dinner in silence. Each day he wanted to ask where the stables were, but put it off until he got to know Sakamoto better. “Tomorrow,” Maru would tell the dove before bed.

He balled up the sheet that he had taken to carry his things and used it as part of his pillow. It still smelled like home. If Nino had been there he would have chastised him for using it like a child would a security blanket – but Nino wasn’t there and that was the point. Every night Maru clutched onto it a little tighter and drifted off to sleep, determined to ask about the stables the next day.

Instead, after a couple of weeks of service, Sakamoto suddenly handed him a key. “I have business in town, I’ll be gone for a few days,” he explained. “I want you to clean the rooms in the tower – except the last one. Do whatever you want in the other two, but don’t go in the room at the top of the tower, okay?”

Maru nodded, pocketing the key.

Sakamoto then handed him an egg. “Protect this at all times. If you don’t, the other birds will destroy it.” He paused and looked Maru in the eyes, a pleading expression on his face. “You understand, right? It’s really important that you understand.”

“I understand,” Maru answered, taking the egg. When Sakamoto left, he ran straight to his room and pulled the sheet off of his bed. If the egg was to be kept safe, he could think of no safer thing. He ripped a strip off of the end and tied it around the egg; then he tied one of the ends to a loop on his pants. The birds would never try to pick it off of him.

His first priority was to search the outside of the castle, hoping that maybe he had just missed the stables. When he could find nothing of the sort, Maru wondered if the business Sakamoto was attending to didn’t have to do with keeping his stables in another town. He then searched the entire castle, finding no sign of his brother’s presence. If Inocchi really had run away, he had been sure to take everything with him.

That was, Maru realized – he had searched every room in the castle but the three locked ones. He quickly pulled out the key and ran off to the tower.

After shooing away some starlings perched around the door, he opened the first room and looked around. There was an old, withered tree and silver items scattered all around the floor, but nothing of Inocchi. Maru ran to the second room, taking the stairs two at a time – his rush causing some crows to scatter as he flew by. The second room was covered in vines and had a pile of gold, but again, no sign of his brother.

_…don’t go in the room at the top of the tower, okay?_

Maru focused in on the pile of gold in front of him. It looked like it had been untouched for some time. And while the silver had been scattered about in the first room, there had been a good amount. Something about Sakamoto’s story poked its way into Maru’s mind – there was so much treasure left, how could Inocchi have run away if he had taken half?

He sprinted up the stairs to the third room, convinced that it was forbidden because it held the truth. As Maru opened the door, a lone vulture sitting outside a window started to hiss. There was nothing there but a large basin covered with a sheet, and as Maru began to approach it, his stomach dropped at the thought that the basin was the perfect size for a man. He pulled the sheet off and crumpled to his knees as he saw the face of his brother sticking up through a pool of blood, his eyes shut peacefully. “Inocchi…”

Maru leaned over to reach down and stroke his cheek, and as he did, the egg slipped out of its hammock and into the blood. He sat by the basin until the sun went down; then it rose, and set again. After a while, Maru shook off his daze and realized that he had lost track of time – he had no idea how long he had sat there by his brother’s side. Gaining his senses back, he left the room and started down the stairs, determined to find his way back to Nino to tell him what had happened.

As Maru rounded the corner and passed one of the windows, he saw Sakamoto outside in the distance, quickly approaching the front door. By the time he could get downstairs, it would be too late – Sakamoto would be blocking his only escape.

Panicked, Maru rushed back into the forbidden room and looked around the basin for the egg. After a moment, he found it floating near the top, easy to scoop up without making a mess. He wrapped it in the scrap at his side and pulled the sheet back over the basin, quickly leaving and locking the door behind him.

By the time he made it down the stairs to the second room, he could already hear Sakamoto calling his name. Without a second thought, Maru ducked into the room beside him and huddled in the corner, checking the egg to make sure that it had not cracked during its fall. He quickly wiped off the blood with the clean side of the sheet…only to find that the blood reappeared after every swipe.

“Maru?” he heard Sakamoto call. The man was coming up the stairs.

In a last ditch effort, Maru rolled the egg in the dirt on the ground, hoping it would at least disguise his folly.

“There you are,” Sakamoto said, voice gentle, as he entered the room.

“I was just going to clean up,” Maru stammered out.

Sakamoto nodded. “Thank you. I’m sorry about coming back so soon, but I finished earlier than I expected. Do you have the egg?”

“What?” he choked out.

“The egg I gave you,” Sakamoto answered. “Do you have it?”

Maru held out the dirty object, afraid to look the other in the eye.

At first, Sakamoto took it from him with an amused look, a half-sneer of good-natured confusion. As he started to knock off the dirt, revealing the bloody shell underneath, his expression changed – his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes turned unforgiving as the half-sneer slid into a full scowl. “You went in the room upstairs.”

Maru started to take a step back. “Why is Inocchi in the basin?”

“He went into the room,” Sakamoto answered, momentarily distracted by placing the egg in a secure pouch at his side. “Somewhere safer for you,” he said to it, quietly. “I asked him not to go into that room and he did.”

“Is he dead?”

“He better be,” Sakamoto said. “He’s been in there for weeks.”

Maru stepped back until he was pressed up against the wall, trembling.

“Look, I said you could do whatever you wanted but just don’t go into that room,” Sakamoto told him, clearly frustrated. “That’s all. Just don’t go into one room.”

Maru couldn’t back up any more and took a hard gulp. He tried to lift his arm to tell Sakamoto to stop, but found that his clothes were caught on the vines. His hair had become snagged too – in fact, the more Maru struggled, the more entangled he became. He pulled and pulled, trying to break free. His left arm was buried deep in the vines and as he jerked to the right to rip it out, he could hear and feel the snapping of his left shoulder.

Sakamoto stepped next to him with a weary expression on his face. He lifted Maru’s head and said, “Why can’t you just stay out of that room?” Before Maru could answer, he made a quick motion with his right hand, ripping his knife across the other’s neck. Maru’s head dropped down and hung to the side, blood trailing down his shirt.

Sakamoto took the knife and started cutting the vines away. “Don’t worry,” he said with a soft voice. “I won’t let the birds have you.”

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

~*~

Once upon a time, Nino had welcomed silence – relished in it. It was so rare that even the briefest of moments were to be treasured. He was attempting to cook pumpkin, the first ripe one of the season. But in all honesty, his fondness for stewed pumpkin rivaled that of his fondness for boiled turnips. He had kept the pouch of coins on their mantle, resolving not to touch it and instead relying on their modest crop for food. Inocchi had said that when he came back they’d eat meat, and so Nino refused to touch even a single coin – it would take all that they had to buy the fattest duck. Or maybe even a pig with what Maru earned too.

He had run out of cloth to stitch, run out of holes to mend. And so to keep himself busy, Nino had turned to collecting fall leaves and sewing them into blankets, scarves. Maru always caught a cold when the seasons changed and Inocchi was in desperate need of a new vest. As he smacked the spoon as hard as he could against the pot, more to make noise than shake off water, Nino sighed. His brothers would come home to a house filled with leaf-made crafts and he’d never hear the end of it.

But at least laughter would erase the silence.

When he heard the knocking at the door, Nino stumbled over himself to get to it. He threw the door open wide, his face expectant. Only the wrong person was there. “Where’s Maru?” he asked.

“In a cave somewhere, I suspect.” Sakamoto looked displeased. “Your brothers are of questionable character.”

“What happened?” Nino asked, hesitantly letting him in.

“I’m afraid your brother was rather despondent about my lesser wealth,” Sakamoto explained. “I had to pay him less since your other brother stole half-” He shook his head and continued. “Anyway, one of the cook’s nephews started talking to him about how the villagers found jewels in cave streams around the mountain. I think he convinced your brother that one weekend would change his life. When he left, he said something about,” he sniffed, “never having to eat pumpkins again. I haven’t seen him since.”

Nino crossed his arms. “How long ago was that?”

“Several weeks,” Sakamoto answered. “I would have come to see you sooner, but I had hoped he would come to his senses. Anyway.” Sakamoto tossed another small bag full of coins at him. “Thank you for your time.”

“Wait,” Nino said. “I’ll go back with you. You still need help right?”

“I’m not sure that you’re up to it.”

“Your cape,” Nino pointed out. “It’s ratty and worn out.” He gestured to his own shirt. “I can sew.”

Sakamoto seemed to mull it over and then finally nodded. 

“I just need to grab a few things,” Nino replied. He rushed about the house, uninterested in knickknacks or clothes. Instead he grabbed his needles and his thread, anything he would use to sew. When he was done, he took the cooking pumpkin out of the fire and carried it to the open window, dumping it outside. It wasn’t done enough to eat and he certainly wasn’t going to leave it on until they got back.

It struck him as rather funny. Something in the back of his mind told him that he was foolish to even entertain the idea that he’d be coming back. As the steam cleared and Nino got a clear view of the pumpkins in the patch, the largest of which now completely ripe and waiting for a pair of hands to pick it and a charming smile to sell it in town – things it would probably rot and mold waiting for – he realized it didn’t matter anyway.

“I’m ready,” he said.

~*~

“Broken wing, maybe more,” Sakamoto said. “He can’t turn his head. The others would shred him to pieces if he were out on his own. Make sure you feed them every day, birds die of starvation quickly.”

Nino stood on his tiptoes to peer in at the cage, his eyes barely above the bottom to see in. The owl inside was huddled to the right, staring out beyond the bars in an unfocused haze, not turning to look at the new intruder. It blinked slowly. “What about the rest?”

“They usually find their own food,” Sakamoto answered, leading him out to show off the rest of the castle. 

Nino didn’t mind the owl – or the dove – that stayed in his room. They were both caged, recovering souls. At most they lightly cooed when they saw him approach and they both stood watching guard at night when, exhausted from the demanding work, Nino would stumble in and crawl into bed – often too tired to even bother taking off his boots. They didn’t demand much of him and within days their presence became comforting – especially given that there were no stables to be found and no other staff who lived in the castle. Nino hadn’t really expected to find either, but after his month of solitude, he was glad to wake up every morning and see that the injured birds had both survived another night.

He caught himself thinking that it was nice to have company again, despite the fact that the company in question was rarely more than the birds he cleaned up after. At night he saw Sakamoto, for dinner. For a while, the two sat in silence with only gulps and chewing as conversation. By the third night, Nino felt comfortable enough to ask for the pepper.

Sakamoto kept his eyes on his soup, steaming and yet untouched, with a slight laugh. “Maybe you should try it first?”

Nino nodded, taking a taste. “You’re right, it’s fine.”

Sakamoto raised a spoonful in response. 

“Is that what you do all day?” Nino asked. 

“I’m sorry?”

He took another bite. “You made this, right? It’s good.”

Sakamoto shifted in his seat, thrown by the compliment. “I did.” After a moment, “I always cook. I think you may be the first person to have noticed.”

“That’s hard to believe,” Nino replied. He caught the other man giving him an inquisitive look and almost pointed out that surely his brothers would have guessed the same. “The pepper – no one likes having their work altered. Besides,” he added after another spoonful, “there’s no one else here.”

“There used to be, a long time ago. A lot of people.”

“Now there’s just a bunch of birds,” Nino prompted.

Sakamoto laughed, slightly uncomfortable, rubbing his eyebrow with his fingers. “Birds are easier to get along with. There’s another town,” he ventured, “in the other direction from yours – over a series of streams. It’s a little closer and I used to go there all the time.”

“So why did you start coming to my town instead?”

He smiled. “There’s a strange notion amongst the people in this area that I’m some kind of magician, a wizard.”

Nino raised his eyebrows as he continued to eat his soup. “Are you?”

“What do you think?”

Nino lingered on the last spoonful. Noisy and nasty and annoying as the wild birds were, he had had an easier time at the castle than he had ever had in town. At least the birds were up front about their distrust – they kept their distance from most people and he could understand why. But the villagers, they were noisier and nastier and the most annoying of all. He nodded. “I don't think birds care a lot about rumors.”

“No,” Sakamoto said, with a calm smile, leaning back in his chair. “They don’t.” 

He didn’t even take a week – the next day Sakamoto handed over a key and an egg and announced that he would be gone a while. At first, he had a warm expression, one with gentle eyes, as he asked Nino to clean the locked rooms. “Do whatever you want in the first two rooms, but stay out of the third one. Protect the egg at all times, or the other birds will destroy it.” His warmth faded away, leaving a weary look. “It’s really important,” he said. “Please, _please_ don’t-” Sakamoto stopped, a sense of resignation and sadness about him. He turned to leave. “It doesn't matter. I’ll be back in a few days.”

The minute he was gone, Nino took the egg to his bedroom and placed it on his pillow – if the birds were interested in it, then it only made sense to him to put it in the one place the birds couldn’t go. He shut his bedroom door, tightly, and made his way toward the tower.

He spent little time in the first room. He wasn’t interested in the silver, still scattered about the floor, nor the way the dirt seemed to have been kicked around. He spent less time in the second – only briefly glancing at the gold before turning his attention to a heap of vines that had been cut, what looked like a scrap of clothing caught in their leaves. Nino didn’t give much thought to what he had seen in either room – he didn’t have to: the amount of wealth and its surrounding disarray only confirmed his need to feel suspicious, the same way the lack of stables and staff did. What interested him the most was what was forbidden, and Nino quickly made his way to the room at the top of the tower.

He pushed the heavy door open and took a deep breath before walking in. Unlike the rest of the castle, it was mostly empty and bright – so clean as to almost be white – and devoid of birds save a vulture outside a barred window. Nino watched it for a minute before stepping in – the vulture could peck its beak through the bars, but not much more.

As he slowly approached the middle, coming closer to the covered basin, his hands started to shake. With each step, he could see more clearly that the room wasn’t quite so immaculate – dots of red splattered on the stone wall. Only a few feet away, he could see the top of the sheet and how in the middle there were streaks of red – the long lines of marks left by fingers that had grabbed it without care, staining it forever in blood. He was on his knees when he reached the basin. And the room, from that view, so much closer up, no longer seemed clean at all – the streaks of red now too obvious to ignore.

Nino didn’t pull the sheet off. Instead, with a pained cry, he put his hands against the basin, careful not to place them where bloody handprints remained, and pushed, determined to turn it over. He put all of his strength into it, boots scraping against the floor from the pressure – even turning to use his back for leverage. To no avail – the basin was much too heavy. He realized it was larger – much deeper and full – than it looked. He stood up and with a shaking hand, reached out to grab the sheet.

Nino’s fingertips graced the cloth just enough that he could barely feel the texture. He stopped. With an exhale, he turned and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

That night, the dove and owl flapped excitedly when Nino came in and moved the egg off of his bed. He pulled the sheet over his head and crawled in, expecting to drift away to their gentle cooing. Instead, the dove started to whimper – then, a high pitched, desperate call as it flapped its wings about the cage. The owl joined in, voice shrill and quivering. As the night went on, they got louder and louder, pitiful and frantic. Their cries drowned out the night and cut through even the pillow Nino put over his head, unrelenting like the hands of the poor reaching out for help. 

Awake, Nino could do little more than contemplate the contents of the basin. Sakamoto cooked, so perhaps he carved meat in there. Or Nino had yet to find one of the larger birds dead in the castle – maybe Sakamoto placed his precious deceased pets in there. Or maybe… Nino's thoughts drifted back in rapid succession to the scattered silver, the cut vines, the lack of people and stables and the blood on the walls, which was now magnified in his waking dreams and pouring down the stone. In Nino’s mind, he walked back into the forbidden room, the vulture guarding his ascent, and he grabbed the sheet. In Nino’s mind, he pulled it and the basin swallowed him whole.

He sat up with a jolt, sweating and unaware of when he had finally fallen asleep. The dove and owl were calm, fluffed up in the cool morning air and patiently waiting for their caretaker’s visit. 

He spent most of the day working, earnestly cleaning as much as he could to stave off his curiosity and sleepiness. As the day ticked away, he found himself closer and closer to the tower, until he could no longer help it and raced up the stairs, two at a time.

This time, the vulture flew away once it saw him. Nino walked to the basin and grabbed the sheet, holding it tight in his hands. He took a deep breath. But like before, he let go before pulling it off, unable to find a reason to look inside – unwilling to confirm what he already knew. 

That night the dove and the owl were louder, more haunting in their cries. In frustration, Nino threw his pillow, knocking the cage of the owl and causing the bird to fall back against the bars, landing on its broken wing. He immediately regretted it and ran to the cage. “I’m sorry,” he stammered, trying to look into its round eyes. Somehow, he thought the bird understood.

Later he bathed in blood – naked and confined in the basin, the red liquid running down his fingertips as he lifted his hand to stare in dazed curiosity – its pool warm and inviting, pulling him down as he slid his head back against the metal until he could feel his hair slowly getting wet. He turned his face up and soon it covered his ears, drawing him into another world of enhanced sound. He could hear every call of the birds below – every shrill, shrieking scream that haunted those walls and floated up through the well of blood. Nino stared up with blank eyes, somehow able to see himself in the pool of red below – his face alone floating above it.

He awoke the next morning again in a sweat. That day, the third day, he had no idea when or how he made it to the room on top of the tower. But once there, he spent hours just sitting in the doorframe, staring at the basin from afar. At night the owl and dove cried louder and Nino couldn’t help but try to comfort them, lighting a candle and talking to them, saying whatever came into his mind. He told the owl a story, one his mother had told him long ago. He confided in the dove that he had always wanted to find another town and try to make money with his sewing, but that he was secretly afraid the reaction would be just the same. He talked and talked until his words stopped making sense and he could no longer guess what hour it had become. 

And then, when he raised his hand from the basin, watching the blood trickle off and slowly drop down below where the faces of his two brothers – the faces of Maru and Inocchi – stared back up, peacefully and blank, he realized it was no longer part of his dream. It was the fourth day and he had finally pulled off the cover. The blood was no longer a fever dream, but a reality much worse than he had imagined. Nino bunched up the sheet that had been over the basin and sank to the floor, curling up and hiding his face for an hour until every tear had been soaked up by the blood-stained cloth.

That night, the dove and owl gently cooed, soft and soothing in their songs, like a mother singing a child to sleep.

Nino awoke to a knock on his door – Sakamoto had come back early, as promised. He quickly got out of bed, stopping to grab the egg from its resting place, putting it in his pocket before opening the door. Sakamoto mistook his glare of detest as the result of a disturbed sleep. 

“The egg,” Sakamoto said, holding out his hand, wasting no time. “Where is it?”

Nino pulled it out of his pocket and handed it over. He stepped back and watched as Sakamoto, expression somewhat confused, inspected the egg closely – rolling it around over and over for a trace of what wasn’t there. 

“It can’t be,” Sakamoto said quietly. “Not a drop. It’s pristine.” A wide smile broke out, a genuine one of warmth and happiness, as his eyes filled with tears. “Finally,” he said. “Nino, tonight we’ll eat our finest meal!” He clasped the other on the shoulder. “But first, I know I haven't paid you yet. Do you still have the key?”

Nino fished it out of his other pocket, handing it over with a slight hitch in his breath. 

“As payment, you can pick out anything you’d like,” Sakamoto said, leading him out of the room and toward the tower.

Nino’s heart started to race as he looked for an excuse. “I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “I didn’t clean the rooms. The gold and that,” he said, picking up his pace to keep up with Sakamoto. “I didn’t know if you wanted it in piles or…”

“That’s okay,” Sakamoto replied. “We’ll have plenty of time to clean it up later.” He walked past the first room and started up the stairs. 

“Actually,” Nino said, stopping him. “I’d rather have silver than gold.” Once in the locked room, he quickly set about digging through the scattered pieces, trying to ignore the way the ground was strangely clumped in certain spots. At last, he found what he was looking for – what he was hoping would exist amongst all of the other treasure. “This,” Nino said, holding it up. “This is what I want.”

“A candlestick?” Sakamoto said, amused. “But you could have gold, why that?”

“I need it,” Nino replied, quickly adding, “for my room – it gets too dark at night. This is exactly what I need.”

At dinner, there were several kinds of meat available, more than Nino imagined he had ever eaten in his lifetime. He quietly cut away at his food, slowly eating it and trying not to make faces at the sweet taste or bitter thoughts that washed over his tongue. Sakamoto seemed relaxed, much happier than Nino had ever seen him.

“This castle has been in my family for years,” he said, lively and in between bites. “When I was much younger it was beautiful, we had all kinds of servants who used to care for it – cooking and cleaning and even young ladies who did nothing but follow my mother around. I learned a lot from them – ah, that pork, I learned how to do that from one of the cooks. My father spent a lot of time in the town with the people, but they ended up…” Sakamoto kept his eyes on the plate in front of him for a moment before giving a small laugh and changing the subject. “I had fencing lessons here, as well, and one time-”

Nino stood up from the table. 

“Ah, I’m sorry,” Sakamoto said, looking at him. “Did you want more?”

“No,” Nino said quietly. “I need to…” He rushed off, heading straight for his room with every intention of grabbing the heavy, thick candlestick. He dragged it off of his bed and let it hang at his side, the weight pulling down the muscles in his arm with a pleasant pain. He played the scenario in his head a few times – swung the stick around to get a feel for how it moved through the air. With a focused squint of his eyes, he headed back to the dining room, his gaze set on Sakamoto’s head.

But before he could get close enough, Sakamoto turned. “Is there something wrong with it?”

“Huh?”

“The candlestick,” Sakamoto replied, motioning to it. He wiped his mouth on a cloth napkin and then stood, grabbing the key out of his pocket. “Changed your mind after all?”

“No, I,” Nino started. Then he started to breathe really fast. “No, Sakamoto, that’s not it – come quick, I heard something in the tower!”

“The tower?”

Nino followed him out, continuing in a panicky voice. “I wanted to look for some candles to keep in my room and when I was around the far end, I heard something from the tower. A crashing noise – a big crashing noise.”

“One of the birds must have caught something,” Sakamoto continued. 

Together they walked down the hall to the base, where the first room was. Lined on both sides, the birds had gathered, settled for the night in the rafters and perched on items, quietly watching as the two men passed by – their existence known only by the reflection off of their eyes. Nino felt like he was passing through a gauntlet – walking between walls of guards for a ceremony. They had never been so silent in his presence before, and he knew that for every one he could see, there were at least four more hidden away. “There was a clanging too,” he continued. “Like metal hitting the floor.”

Sakamoto opened the door and found nothing amiss.

“It must have been in the second room,” Nino told him. 

But Sakamoto could find nothing out of place there either. 

As he looked around, Nino inched back through the door, keeping his shoulder pressed against the frame. When Sakamoto crouched down to see if anything had landed in the heap of cut vines, Nino lightly tapped the outside stone with the base of the candlestick.

Sakamoto turned his head quickly.

“There it is again,” Nino commented, stepping away from the door, the candlestick behind his back. “I wouldn’t have told you but it sounded awful. It sounded like metal crashing against the floor and screaming,” he said. “And…and…like, a splash?”

Sakamoto’s eyes widened and his mouth twitched in alarm. He glanced up above and then rushed out of the room. “Stay here until I get back,” he ordered. He took the stairs as quickly as he could, rushing to the third room, the one that had been forbidden to all. “That vulture finally broke through,” he said to himself, unlocking the door as quickly as he could and running inside.

He stopped suddenly, trying to catch his breath. The windows were still barricaded and there was no sign that any bird had made it through. No broken bars, no wounded animals flopping on the floor, no greedy carrion scavengers at the basin.

What he found, instead, was the sheet that had been over the basin crumpled and balled, off to the side. “Someone’s been in here.”

A bloody crack rang out and Sakamoto fell forward, his cheek slamming against the cold stone ground. Behind him, Nino stood, the candlestick raised – it had taken both hands to swing hard enough. His breath was ragged and his eyes wild and wide, his body shaking with intensity as he had to stop himself from swinging again and turning Sakamoto’s skull into a pulp.

He dropped the candlestick and grabbed the other’s legs, using all of his strength to pull him out of the room and down the stairs, through the hallway of avian guards. Nino dragged Sakamoto to his room, his mind as heavy as the basin and as full as the rafters above.

~*~

When Sakamoto came to, his head ached and burned. He tried to raise his hand to rub his skull, but couldn’t get his arm to respond. He winced, for a moment resigned to the idea that he hadn’t fully woken – that his body was still partially paralyzed by sleep. When he tried to raise his arm again, his limb jerked in its sleeve, stuck down beside him, causing a pain in his wrist.

Sakamoto tried sitting up, unable to lift his shoulders from the mattress where he lay. He couldn’t kick his legs, both steadfastly restrained. “What?” he asked, attempting to writhe himself free.

“It won’t work.”

Nino lit a candle and nestled it in the cup of the candlestick which gleamed on one side with Sakamoto’s still wet blood. They were in his bedroom and he stood in the corner with a knife in his hand, the caged dove and owl by his side. 

“What did you do?” Sakamoto asked. In the dim light, he looked over at his shoulder and saw that the sleeves of his shirt had been sewn to Nino’s mattress. The sides of his pants had been sewn too – not wide and sloppy, but very small and meticulous stitches. Sakamoto tried to move again, unconvinced thread was enough to hold him down. The material would not break and the more he struggled, the more he realized that Nino had partially sewn into part of his skin as well.

Nino walked over to him, the knife up. 

“What are you doing?” Sakamoto asked, starting to sweat.

Nino didn’t answer; instead, he held the knife at his chest before grabbing the other's shirt and cutting a slit down it. He was sloppy in his motion, at times nicking Sakamoto’s skin, causing the older man to cringe in pain. When the middle of the shirt had been cut open, Nino pulled the egg he had once protected out of his pocket.

“No, you can’t-” Sakamoto started in a panic. “That’s-”

Nino squeezed the egg in his hand until it bust open, spreading yolk all over his hand. He dribbled the liquid around Sakamoto’s chest before pressing his hand flat against his ribs and rubbing it around in the bleeding skin, jagged bits of shell jabbing in. When he had finished, Nino turned and picked up the two cages, blowing out the candle as he carried them out. He left the door open behind him.

“If you leave me like this,” Sakamoto called after him.

After a moment of unanswered silence, he heard a clap of beating and flapping as the birds in the castle suddenly took flight – Nino rousing them from their roosts and driving them into a panic. He heard crashing and thudding, some hitting the stone walls in the flurry – then they started to crash through the door. Frightened and fighting for safety, some crowded into the room and landed on him – some broke their necks on the floorboard and dressers. With the smaller birds lying in their death throes, pitifully still trying to run away with their broken bodies, the larger birds started to swoop in – hawks and owls and ravens, all eager to take advantage. When the cloud settled, Sakamoto saw two peering eyes reflected in the night, glaring at him, accompanied by a hiss that sounded like cloth being ripped to shreds – Nino’s inhuman eyes piercing through the night.

“If you leave me like this,” Sakamoto started again, yelling in a panic.

Nino had his hand on the door. “You’re a murderer.”

“-then you’re no better than me. If you kill,” he finished, “you’ll be no different.”

Unfazed, Nino shut the door, locking the captive Sakamoto and all the birds inside.

He didn’t leave immediately, too wise to try to travel the forest at night. Instead, Nino gathered what he could in the kitchen, finding anything that would feed himself and the two birds for the next few days. He had no trouble ignoring the calls from his old room – both the sounds of the attacking birds and the screams from Sakamoto.

In the morning, he pressed his ear up against the door. There was some light flapping and a ragged, heavy breath. He took the candlestick and placed it front of the door, lighting the candle. Once he had gathered all of his things, the two cages in hand – one at each side – he kicked the flame over, setting the door on fire.

Nino stepped out in to the cold morning – fall was winding down and the biting air stung his fingertips and nose. He took a moment to brush off his vest, where several black feathers had become stuck in the dried yolk from the night before. The leaves crunched around him as he started walking from the castle. It would soon be engulfed in flames and Nino considered the possibility that it would spread, catching him and enveloping him in the woods. As he carried on, the sounds of the burning birds inside shrieking like that in his dream, he quietly asked, “What have I done?” If the flames caught him, he knew – it would only be just punishment.

His lungs ached as he inhaled and headed into the woods, unsure if he’d be able to navigate his way home before they all starved. As the canopy got thicker, and the world around him darker and darker grew, the echo of Sakamoto’s last words hung over him - _you’ll be no different_.

It wasn’t the fall weather that chilled Nino; it was the truth.

~*~

_Ten years later…_

The woods were thick and disorienting. He had heard that children who had wandered in to play had become lost souls, forever looking down from the branches at travelers with murderous envy. 

Yoko shuddered at the thought. It was a tale told to the kids in his town to keep them from venturing out too far into the woods. Still, he had been stomping around for days and as far as he could tell, each tree looked exactly alike. He wasn’t sure if he had made any progress or not. 

If he exited the woods right back into his hometown, he’d be the laughing stock – more so than he already was. It wasn’t that he wasn’t smart or capable; just that Yoko had spent his entire life in his town and everyone knew his story. Every father and wife glanced at him when he walked by, quietly whispering to their company, “That’s him.”

He had heard there was another village, just on the other side of the woods. Some had said the work there was good – if nothing else he could ask the tavern if they needed extra hands. It was a little too late to help out with the harvest, but if someone just gave him a chance now, he’d surely repay them in the future.

Yoko tripped on an exposed root and caught himself on a few low laying limbs. They snagged and ripped his clothes, causing him to curse loud enough that animals scattered. If he didn’t get out of there soon, he’d have to spend another night in the woods – and his food was dangerously low.

After a few minutes, a strange smell caught his nose – the smoky ashes of a fire. He followed the scent quickly, coming to the edge of the forest, out next to a house. It was small, but a steady stream of smoke flowed out of the chimney. Yoko smiled in relief and jogged toward it.

The house was enclosed, but not by a fence. All around the sides were running vines of pumpkins, untended and wild, knotted and thick. The pumpkins themselves had been left in the yard, unpicked, untouched. As Yoko came to the door, he noticed that they were already past their prime, exploded with rot – the sides collapsed, almost melted in, and crawling with bugs. He had to quickly hold his wrist to his nose to block out the stench.

A crow called out above and Yoko glanced up before knocking on the door. It seemed like several of them had come to the area – maybe for the easy meals, he thought to himself. He quickly knocked and huddled, waiting for a response. The sun was already gone and the cold settling in.

The door opened slowly and Yoko put on his best smile. “I’m sorry to bother you,” he started, rubbing his arms to warm up. “I’ve been traveling for three days in the woods. I’m trying to get to a village but I’m kind of lost. Could I stay the night? I promise, I’ll do anything in return – I’ll help you get rid of all of these rotten pumpkins or something. If I can just stay the night and get something to eat.”

“Sure, come in.”

Yoko smiled widely and bounded into the house. He put down his pack and looked around as the door slowly started to shut behind him.

The house was covered in birds – in one corner there was a caged dove, ancient and withered. In another was an owl with wide, weary eyes. Both were surrounded by blankets of old, dead leaves – grotesquely sewn into forms. There were crows up above and feathers scattered about. Birds perched on the mantle and on every chair and the house was littered with nest makings. Yoko couldn’t help but start to hunch up at the feeling of suddenly being watched by dozens of sharp, black eyes. It was so quiet, he could hear every crackle in the fire.

Next to him, Nino extended a hand, a smile on his face – but one that seemed hollow, with an edge. “I’d be glad to let you stay for a while,” he said, as the door finally clicked shut. “I need some help around here – some hired help.”

 

Based on the tale Fowler’s Fowl/Fitcher’s Bird.


End file.
